Saturday, March 19, 2011

REALLY, GENE? REALLY?

21 comments:

Anonymous
said...

How generous of you to expect Gene "I'm ready for my closeup Mr. DeMille" Robinson to not be tempted to wear Look At Me! vestments. I am one of many liberals who find Gene's pursuit of every mike and lighting check undignified and narcissistic. His tenure was unhelpful to say the least.

The color combo, however is awfully snappy and is featured in the spring 2011 Boden catalog!

This is not the good bishop's fault, I don't think. This picture is from a service at Grace Cathedral a few years back and is part of their standard (horrible) garb. You can see the altar frontal in the foreground...

as a gay man, I am insulted by this whole thing... if we're gonna be represented in the episcopate can we at least be presented well? Being gay is not an excuse for heterodoxy! Good liturgy, and right teaching of the Gospel and reverence for the Lord are demanded from everyone in pastoral care. Shame on you for betraying the church and making all homosexuals look bad!

It's bad, but not cringe-inducing. After all, at least it has crosses on it so that it could be mistaken for Christian and not syncretic baloney. (Then again, if you told me it had the "Tolerance" bumper-sticker embroidered in the part concealed, I'd believe you.)

I wish more of the frontal was shown.The chasuble wasn't bad, what I could see of it, but which liturgical color does it represent? Green, blue (the BVM is not really au courant in anglicanism, is she?) and are those crosses part of it or just dangling? I couldn't figure it out. Please explain!Rdr. James

As someone who knows Gene Robinson as both a pastor and a friend, I consider him to a holy and very spiritual human being. The people of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire elected him as our Bishop not because he was gay, but because of his holiness and decency as a human being. Gene did not ask to be thrust into the limelight, but would become the spokesman of the disenfranchised people of our society which, in many cases, includes the LBGT community. If memory serves me correctly, that's Jesus was about also. He didn't hang with the rich CEOs or religious bigwigs. He befriended the poor, the handicapped and other outcasts.

Granted, this is a pretty awful chasuble, but a bishop will generally wear the home church's vestments. That's the case here. Gene is actually pretty conservative when it comes vestments.

Oh, for Pete's sake. Lighten up, the lot of you. If you can sing "Just as I am, without one plea" with even a shred of honesty, you can understand the humility required of any bishop to be gracious and wear whatever chasuble matched the frontal or whatever church s/he happens to be visiting. Especially Gene, who happens to be quite conservative, even for progressives, but especially for liberals.

If a bishop is supposed to be 'humble' enough to wear something that matches the altar vestments, it would be nice if the parish clergy were 'humble' enough not to decorate their altars like monuments to the Lord Bad Taste or whatever they are worshipping that week.

I've been in plenty of churches where things were done in the name of the Lord Good Taste, which still isn't always in the name of the Lord your God. No need to get political here, though! I enjoy looking at bad liturgical vestments just as much as anyone. Agnus Dei, miserere nobis.

songsterct - winning an election for bishop is no indication of holiness or competency.Gene was running in every election that came his way to become the poster boy for gay ordination. His grandstanding at Lambeth was the opposite of humility. 20,000 people leave TEC each year - lots of us are liberal. We're sick of an obsolete, preening hierarchy..particularly those with bad taste. And having hung out with Gene during an EYE event,I saw a lot of bad taste that week.

WHY WE'RE HERE

This site is dedicated to subjecting particularly awful Christian liturgical vestments or church decorations to the ridicule they so richly deserve. Contributions are welcome and can be e-mailed to websterglobe at juno dot com.